New Delhi, April 18: The Centre and the BJP today unleashed a coordinated attack on the erstwhile UPA government and the Congress for allegedly keeping under wraps the purported links between Ishrat Jahan and Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Junior home minister Kiren Rijiju accused former Union home minister P. Chidambaram of being "anti-national" for allegedly changing the first affidavit that described Ishrat as a LeT operative, triggering a fresh controversy over the "fake" encounter when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat chief minister.

Almost simultaneously, Nirmala Sitharaman slammed the Congress leadership at the BJP headquarters, charging Sonia Gandhi with being actively involved in a conspiracy to target then Gujarat chief minister, Modi.

The fresh round of controversy erupted after a news channel reported that the first affidavit on Ishrat Jahan had the signature of Chidambaram.

"Earlier Chidambaram had denied having signed the first affidavit but we have got evidence as it (affidavit) has his signature on it. He has now been caught red-handed. It was an anti-national act," Rijiju said after the news broke on the channel.

In 2009, the UPA-led home ministry had submitted an affidavit in Gujarat High Court describing Ishrat and three others as LeT operatives on the basis of intelligence reports. Within a month, a second affidavit approved by Chidambaram said there was no conclusive evidence of their links with the terror outfit.

While Rijiju targeted Chidambaram, the BJP took on the Congress and its chief, alleging that Sonia was part of the conspiracy to change the first affidavit in a desperate bid to implicate the then Gujarat chief minister.

"The entire Congress party is party to this. Sonia Gandhi worked actively on this theory (to change the affidavit). The entire Congress party is involved because they could not fight Narendra Modi politically," Sitharaman said.

Sitharaman, commerce minister in the central government, addressed the media in her capacity as a BJP leader and she went to the extent of charging the Congress with attempting to eliminate Modi.

"The Congress should take responsibility. They wanted to quietly watch a terror plot bloom to eliminate Narendra Modi," she said.

Rijiju, however, kept the focus on Chidambaram. He denied any "witch-hunt" against the former home minister but said the government wanted to expose him.

"We want to expose him for misleading the county. He not only misused his position as a home minister but also abused it by confirming terrorists as innocent persons. His doublespeak on such a sensitive issue concerning the country's security needs to be exposed," he said.

Rijiju said the Centre cannot take action against then home minister, saying it was a policy decision.

Sitharaman said the issue would be raised by the BJP during the upcoming Parliament session. "The Congress cannot be left off the hook on this issue. They have compromised with national security," she said.

Last month, former home secretary G.K. Pillai had claimed that Chidambaram had changed the affidavit "bypassing" bureaucrats. But the former home minister said the second affidavit was "absolutely correct", adding that Pillai was equally responsible for the change in the affidavit.

Records available with the home ministry revealed that Pillai, who is now an independent director with Adani Ports, a company chaired by Gautam Adani, had not included any note of dissent on the second affidavit on Ishrat, from which he had distanced himself.

Ishrat and the three others were killed in an alleged encounter in Gujarat in 2004 by a team of Gujarat police when Modi was chief minister and Amit Shah junior home minister. The police had said Ishrat and the three others were on their way to assassinate Modi.

On the CBI's conclusion that the encounter was "fake, Rijiju refused to comment. "Right now I cannot comment on this," the minister said.

The controversy over Ishrat had come to the fore recently following the testimony by David Coleman Headley, who conspired with the Laskhar for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, in which he claimed that the college girl was linked to the terror outfit.